Rejection from any college sucks. However, it's important to understand that there is a world outside college admissions, and life is actually okay with a rejection letter from anywhere between one and infinite schools. Here's my breakdown on how to best equip yourself this week.

Many have identified the weaknesses in Deresiewicz's jeremiad. In his forthcoming novel, Supreme Ambitions, David Lat, founder of the legal blog Above the Law, takes a different approach. What happens, he asks, to all those excellent sheep after graduation? His answer won't surprise many: The sheep get herded to law school.

Maybe a culture that values over-achievement and pushing oneself to the limits is responsible for the high levels of stress, mental illness, and even suicide evident within highly competitive college communities.

Many would say that we burden ourselves too much when we dredge up such dread and terror; but, without memory, a collective memory, we are less human and we are more likely to be less humane to each other.

After the festivities of the celebration I looked forward to helping my daughter pack up her room in the house she had lived in with four other women during their senior year at college. "I'll help clean up," I said. "It's practically finished anyway," said the new graduate. Famous last four words.

A homogenous and self-perpetuating elite is a bad thing for any society, and particularly for the United States. Alone among nations the U.S. envisions itself as the place where citizens can and should rise as far as their combination of talents and hard work can take them.

Great parenting begins with loving a son or daughter unconditionally. Great admissions decisions begin with a cool assessment of a student's strengths and weaknesses. The gap between the two could not be wider.